IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v73y2025ics1544612324017161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trustworthiness of firm valuations: Bias and market perception in compliance with capital market regulations

Author

Listed:
  • El-Al, Eli
  • Galil, Koresh
  • Gavious, Ilanit

Abstract

Capital market and accounting regulations stipulate that firms’ market prices should be preferred over expert valuations as the latter are more susceptible to subjective assertions or judgments by the management and/or appraiser. As a result of this regulatory requirement, companies' subsidiaries that are (not) publicly traded are generally included in their financial reports according to market (expert) value. However, we show that (1) for private firms, expert valuations are systematically upward biased, whereas, for public firms, they are not; (2) private firms' expert valuations are non-informative, whereas, for public firms, they are not only informative but more so than the market values; and (3) market participants consider the public companies' expert valuations reliable and useful. It appears that market participants are able to see through the inherent possibility of an intentional or unintentional bias in firm valuations that rely on future projections and still find valuations valuable. Our results should be of interest to regulators, investors, managers, financial analysts, and various other capital market participants. Acknowledging regulatory limitations can benefit market participants even in the presence of imperfect regulations.

Suggested Citation

  • El-Al, Eli & Galil, Koresh & Gavious, Ilanit, 2025. "Trustworthiness of firm valuations: Bias and market perception in compliance with capital market regulations," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:73:y:2025:i:c:s1544612324017161
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2024.106687
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612324017161
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2024.106687?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bai, Jennie & Philippon, Thomas & Savov, Alexi, 2016. "Have financial markets become more informative?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 625-654.
    2. John Capstaff & Krishna Paudyal & William Rees, 2001. "A Comparative Analysis of Earnings Forecasts in Europe," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5‐6), pages 531-562, June.
    3. Gus De Franco & Ilanit Gavious & Justin Y. Jin & Gordon D. Richardson, 2011. "Do Private Company Targets that Hire Big 4 Auditors Receive Higher Proceeds?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 215-262, March.
    4. Hodder, Leslie & Hopkins, Patrick & Schipper, Katherine, 2014. "Fair Value Measurement in Financial Reporting," Foundations and Trends(R) in Accounting, now publishers, vol. 8(3-4), pages 143-270, December.
    5. Kothari, S.P. & Ramanna, Karthik & Skinner, Douglas J., 2010. "Implications for GAAP from an analysis of positive research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 246-286, December.
    6. Dechow, Patricia M. & Myers, Linda A. & Shakespeare, Catherine, 2010. "Fair value accounting and gains from asset securitizations: A convenient earnings management tool with compensation side-benefits," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1-2), pages 2-25, February.
    7. S.P. Kothari & Karthik Ramanna & Douglas J. Skinner, 2009. "Implications for GAAP from an Analysis of Positive Research in Accounting," Harvard Business School Working Papers 09-137, Harvard Business School, revised Sep 2010.
    8. Frankel, Richard & Lee, Charles M. C., 1998. "Accounting valuation, market expectation, and cross-sectional stock returns," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 283-319, June.
    9. Ball, Ray & Shivakumar, Lakshmanan, 2005. "Earnings quality in UK private firms: comparative loss recognition timeliness," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 83-128, February.
    10. Elnathan, Dan & Gavious, Ilanit & Hauser, Shmuel, 2010. "An analysis of private versus public firm valuations and the contribution of financial experts," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 387-412, December.
    11. Stephen Penman, 2007. "Financial reporting quality: is fair value a plus or a minus?," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(S1), pages 33-44.
    12. Louis K. C. Chan & Jason Karceski & Josef Lakonishok, 2003. "The Level and Persistence of Growth Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 643-684, April.
    13. Hanley, Kathleen W. & Jagolinzer, Alan D. & Nikolova, Stanislava, 2018. "Strategic estimation of asset fair values," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 25-45.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    2. Loumioti, Maria & Vasvari, Florin P., 2019. "Portfolio performance manipulation in collateralized loan obligations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 438-462.
    3. Jani Saastamoinen & Hanna Savolainen, 2021. "Does a leopard change its spots? Auditors and lawyers as valuation experts for minority shareholders in the judicial appraisal of private firms," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3-4), pages 613-636, March.
    4. Anagnostopoulou, Seraina C. & Tsekrekos, Andrianos E. & Voulgaris, Georgios, 2021. "Accounting conservatism and corporate social responsibility," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    5. Michel Magnan & Haiping Wang & Yaqi Shi(Sans nom), 2016. "Fair Value Accounting and the Cost of Debt," CIRANO Working Papers 2016s-32, CIRANO.
    6. Dan Givoly & Carla Hayn & Sharon Katz, 2017. "The changing relevance of accounting information to debt holders over time," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 64-108, March.
    7. Michael Minnis & Nemit Shroff, 2017. "Why regulate private firm disclosure and auditing?," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 473-502, July.
    8. Richard Barker & Anne McGeachin, 2015. "An Analysis of Concepts and Evidence on the Question of Whether IFRS Should be Conservative," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 51(2), pages 169-207, June.
    9. Ke Na & Ivy Xiying Zhang & Yong Zhang, 2024. "Is conservatism demanded by performance measurement in compensation contracts? Evidence from earnings measures used in bonus formulas," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 809-851, March.
    10. Chloe Yu-Hsuan Wu & Shou-Min Tsao & Che-Hung Lin, 2025. "Accounting conservatism, corporate diversification and firm value," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 371-415, January.
    11. Macve, R.H., 2015. "Fair value vs conservatism? Aspects of the history of accounting, auditing, business and finance from ancient Mesopotamia to modern China," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 124-141.
    12. Li, Keming & Nishikawa, Takeshi & Rao, Ramesh P., 2025. "Does the threat of short selling discipline management? Evidence from default risk changes around regulation SHO," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    13. Badia, Marc & Duro, Miguel & Penalva, Fernando & Ryan, Stephen, 2017. "Conditionally conservative fair value measurements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 75-98.
    14. Michel Magnan & Garen Markarian, 2011. "Accounting, Governance and the Crisis: Is Risk the Missing Link?," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 215-231.
    15. Wessel M. Badenhorst, 2014. "Fair Value Measurements of Control Premiums," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(3), pages 173-188, September.
    16. Umair Bhutta & Jéssica Nunes Martins & Mário Nuno Mata & Ali Raza & Rui Miguel Dantas & Anabela Batista Correia & Muhammad Rafiq, 2021. "Intellectual Structure and Evolution of Accounting Conservatism Research: Past Trends and Future Research Suggestions," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-13, June.
    17. Mehnaz, Laura & Rahman, Asheq & Kabir, Humayun, 2023. "Covenant violation concern and investors’ pricing of Level 3 fair value adjustments," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3).
    18. Dichev, Ilia D. & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2013. "Earnings quality: Evidence from the field," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 1-33.
    19. Ashraf, Musaib & Donelson, Dain C. & McInnis, John & Mergenthaler, Richard D., 2025. "Fair value accounting standards and securities litigation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1).
    20. DeFond, Mark & Hu, Jinshuai & Hung, Mingyi & Li, Siqi, 2020. "The effect of fair value accounting on the performance evaluation role of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:73:y:2025:i:c:s1544612324017161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.